Visa is integrating open-source blockchain code from the Hyperledger Fabric ahead of the commercial launch of its own blockchain service for enterprise payments in Q1 2019. Visa B2B Connect, the payment giant’s enterprise blockchain platform that enables cross-border payments between businesses, is partnering IBM to integrate the latter’s development of the open-source Hyperledger Fabric framework. As reported nearly two years ago to the day, Visa first announced the blockchain platform...

More A blockchain payments trial jointly launched by a trio of banks led by JPMorgan has roped in 75 new banks globally for seamless and faster interbank settlements. First deployed by JPMorgan in October 2017, the Interbank Information Network began as a blockchain experiment to minimize the participants and friction typically involved in a global payments transaction. The blockchain is developed using Quorum, an Ethereum-based private blockchain developed by JPMorgan in partnership with...

The National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia’s first established bank, has become the latest financial institution to join RippleNet, Ripple’s enterprise blockchain network. A massive market for international remittances due to its sizable migrant worker population, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has already seen its central bank pilot Ripple’s technology for instant international payments. With over 5 million customers worldwide, the National Commercial Bank (NCB) has followed the central...

More The Korea Customs Service (KCS) has entered an agreement with Samsung SDS to implement the latter’s blockchain technology for an export customs clearance system. Samsung SDS, the IT subsidiary and technology provider of Korea’s largest conglomerate Samsung, will develop the world’s first blockchain-based export customs logistics service for the Korea Customs Service to enable efficiency and curb fraud in the industry. A memorandum of understanding between the two entities also sees 48...

The World Bank has priced what it deems the ‘world’s first public blockchain bond’ at AUD$100 million ($73 million) in a settlement to occur next week. The two-year bond, designed to improve the efficiency of automated financing for countries with extreme poverty by moving away a decades-old manual bond sales process, will be settled on August 28 by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Reuters reported on Thursday. Dubbed ‘Bondi’ for Blockchain Operated New Debt Instrument – with a...